Trout upends incumbent Selby

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Tony Trout secured the Republican Party's nomination for the Greer-area County Council seat Tuesday by a 300-vote margin, unseating eight-year councilman Steve Selby and giving supporters of a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday the one vote needed to pass a resolution.

Voters chose a conservative Republican from outside the party's established leadership — the third time this year an incumbent has been ousted. The vote, political watchers said, ratified a newer faction of the county GOP that wants to move past the King controversy to focus on attracting newcomers and other regional issues.

Selby said late Tuesday it was high Democratic turnout in three key precincts that cost him the race.

"I guess I could have worked harder," Selby said, then referred to Trout's door-knocking campaign. "I'll give him that much credit — he did work hard."

When told of the results Tuesday night, Trout said, "That beats the hell out of 18," the margin by which he won in the last runoff that was thrown out after a successful challenge by Selby.

Trout won 1,871 votes, or 55 percent, and Selby received 1,573 votes, according to unofficial election returns. Trout, a 48-year-old security contractor, faces Democrat Jeff White in the November general election.

Dr. Bruce Ransom, a political science professor at Clemson University, said voters decided the King holiday dispute made a council shakeup necessary.

"The voters in their wisdom gave the council a shakeup," Ransom said. "Clearly the incumbent was in trouble back then (in the first election), and so this just solidifies it."

A total of 3,472 people voted Tuesday, which is "pretty close" to the number of voters in the June runoff, said Greenville County Election Commission director Conway Belangia.

District 18 residents exiting polling places Tuesday said almost universally that they were tired of the controversy and legal wrangling between the two Republican ex-cops, though neither the escalating rancor nor the driving rain could keep them from the polls.

White, a neighbor of Trout's, said he took a brief jog with his opponent last week.

"I think he worked hard and survived a tough campaign," White said. "I said, 'Tony, I hope it's you and me'" without the "gutter" politics.

White said he also supports a King holiday, but wants to tackle important local issues such as better education and a comprehensive growth plan for Greer.

Voters Jim Weaver, Patrick Pickett and Thurmond Duke said it came down to voting for the man they felt was more accessible to them, a vindication of Trout's relentless voter courting on front porches early in the campaign and, later, in grocery store parking lots.

Already certain is that, in a divisive debate over a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the council minority that favored the holiday has picked up the extra vote needed to pass a resolution the next time it comes up. That assumes none of the other candidates or council members change their public positions.

Selby has opposed the King holiday. Trout and White support it.

At Taylors First Baptist Church, Sara Prince was one in a steady stream of black voters shaking off their umbrellas and punching ballots. The turnout of black voters, who generally back Democrats, was likely motivated by the King controversy and charges of intimidation of minorities to vote for Trout, political watchers say.

Prince said she's voted in all three rounds of this primary, although she doesn't consider herself a Republican.

She was indignant when asked about her choice in candidates. "It's perfectly obvious" why she voted for Trout, she said, then declined to talk further because she said she was afraid she might say something she shouldn't.

Selby posted watchers at the polls Tuesday to look for illegal voters, after the last runoff was thrown out based on alleged illegal crossover votes, and members of the American Civil Liberties Union and NAACP walked in and out of the precinct polling places to observe the voting.

The only voters legally barred from voting Tuesday were those who voted in the Democratic primary in June. All others were eligible, although Selby called on Trout to denounce Democrats who try to influence the Republican primary. Trout declined.

There were no reports of intimidation, said Belangia, although some voters complained about being asked to declare which party primary they wished to vote in.

There was only one primary Tuesday, the District 18 runoff.

Belangia said the question is "standard" at all primaries and is asked because the commission wants to make sure voters understand which party they're voting for. He said 38 ballots have been challenged, most for address discrepancies, and will be reviewed but will not change the outcome.

Trout didn't start out as the swing vote for a divisive issue that has drawn national attention. He said repeatedly that he ran for County Council's District 18 seat because the county wouldn't fix his road.

The primary win makes him two-for-two this week — he's the Republican nominee and road workers have started repaving Silver Ridge Court.

Trout has also come to represent the more progressive faction of the Republican Party that wants to expand its base and sees the King holiday as a way to be more inclusive, said Ronald Kuykendall, a political science teacher at Greenville Technical College.

"Some of the more progressive individuals within the party are kind of looking beyond local politics" in an effort to pave the way for more business recruitment and tourism, Kuykendall said.

As Trout celebrated at his mother-in-law's house Tuesday night — the power was out at his house — he said he's ready for White.

Council chairwoman Phyllis Henderson, a Republican defeated in June 8 primary who was at Selby's Tuesday, said the precinct numbers made clear to her that some traditionally low-turnout areas had big jumps in total voters, most likely because of Democrats who came out for Trout.

"This is about Democrats voting in a Republican election," she said. "It's not about Republican voters making a choice between two different kinds of Republicans."

Selby pointed to heavily black precincts such as Fairview, where he lost 252 to 400; Taylors, where he lost 179 to 274; and Tryon, where he lost in a landslide 7-to-109 vote.

Representatives from the NAACP and other groups who were trying to get out the Democratic vote in those areas "were obviously intimidating my voters," he said, adding that he received complaints all day from supporters.

Trout said he received the same complaints about Selby poll watchers, estimating he received 70 calls during the day.

Voters, opinions abound

Duke, a 50-year-old assistant manager at a Haywood Mall shoe store, said he was impressed with Trout during a 15-minute conversation on Duke's doorstep during the campaign.

"I found him to be sincere, honest," Duke said, "a breath of fresh air from your normal political type in this county."

It was road improvements, not the MLK holiday controversy, that loomed as the big issue for Duke, and Trout "never mentioned" the holiday during his visit, Duke said.

MLK was the top item for some voters, though, both black and white.

"For those who don't (vote), they don't have a right to complain" about the holiday, said Todd Smith, a 43-year-old white who works in sales and voted for Trout.

At the Maple Creek precinct, 39-year-old Anita Jones, who is black, said, "I think it's just the right thing to do, for us to go forward."

After casting her ballot for Selby at the Suber Mill precinct, Mary McDaniel said, "He's been really good to help us when we needed things." Her parents own Suber Corn Mill, for which the precinct and nearby road are named.

Willette Suber, 81, who rode to the polls with McDaniel, said Selby helped get a zoning variance for the mill last year when the family wanted to build a new feed building.

"I just like him," she said. "I think he's a good man and I think he's an honest man."

Weaver, a self-described "rebel" voting at the Lake Cunningham Fire Department, has cast his vote so often this year he keeps his voter registration card in his car, still inside the wrinkled envelope it was mailed in.

"He already won it one time," Weaver said of Trout, his choice again on Tuesday. "I think we need change," Weaver said.

Long battle

In a three-way primary on June 8, Selby was the leading vote-getter, but fell 18 votes short in a subsequent runoff with Trout. Those results were thrown out after Selby successfully challenged them to the county Republican Party on the basis of alleged illegal voters.

Trout's appeals to the state GOP and state Supreme Court failed.

In the weeks of campaigning before the second runoff, Selby said he would post watchers at the polls to look for suspected illegal voters. The American Civil Liberties Union alleged intimidation by Selby and said it would post its own poll observers.

Last week a mailing from the Committee for Diversity and Fairness publicized a seven-year-old charge against Trout that was dropped by prosecutors and expunged from his record, and a 20-year-old lawsuit against Trout, another police officer and the city of Mauldin that was settled out of court for attorney fees.

The Committee, which held a fund-raiser for Selby and three other GOP candidates, is led by the chairman of the Greenville County chapter of the League of the South — a conservative group that supports secession and is categorized as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Selby said he had nothing to do with the mailing, and was not familiar with the group.

Ransom said the issue made a difference.

"Not to say that it wouldn't have happened otherwise, but I think for anybody that might have been on the fence in this regard, those associations were just too powerful not to go unnoticed," Ransom said. "You really couldn't explain them away, although they tried to rationalize that they didn't know."

Although black voters leaving the polls said they didn't feel intimidated by poll watchers, Greer City Councilman Wayne Griffin said some were baffled by poll workers asking them which primary they wanted to vote in.

"It seemed like it was more to confuse somebody," said Griffin, who is black.

At the Lake Cunningham Fire District, Selby observer Angela Miller, dressed in a patriotic color scheme, said she had been there since 7 a.m. but hadn't contested any ballots.